1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a service station for an ink-jet printer which serves to clean a nozzle of the printer's head, catches waste ink, and seals the nozzle, and more particularly, to a service station operating under power of a print head carriage to clean the nozzle of the head of an ink-jet printer, to hold waste ink, and to seal the nozzle.
2. Discussion of Related Art
A conventional ink-jet printer includes a paper feeding mechanism, which feeds sheets of paper into the printer one by one; a paper conveyance mechanism conveying the paper thorough the printer as images and characters are printed one line at a time onto the paper; a printing mechanism forming the images and characters on the paper in ink; and a paper delivery mechanism discharging the paper to a output tray upon completion of the printing. A conventional ink-jet printer also typically includes a service station that is essential to optimal printer performance, which to maintains the head by cleaning the print head print nozzle, holding waste ink, and sealing the nozzle.
In contemporary designs of ink-jet printers, the path of movement travelled by a head may be divided into a printing zone, an accelerating/decelerating zone, and a service zone, with a service station being installed in the service zone. These service stations typically depend upon movement provided via a multi-component gear train that limits the cleaning operation to those occasions when the print head is within the service zone. Moreover, the number of components in the gear train, in my opinion, unnecessarily slows the servicing of the print head by the service station and contributes to excessive costs of manufacturing the printer. I have observed that conventional service stations lack any waste ink storage function. Recent efforts to improve the wiping and sealing functions performed on the print head by the service station have tended to increase the length of the path travelled by the print head, thereby making the printer somewhat larger than is desirable. The combined length of the printer's printing zone, accelerating/decelerating zone and service zone constitutes the overall length of the printer. The printing zone corresponds to the width of print media, and its length can not be feasibly reduced. The accelerating/decelerating, zone is made for reducing the speed of the carriage and I have found that there is a practicable limit restricting any effort to reduce its length. I have therefore found that while only the service zone can be reduced to create a compact design, the length of the service zone increases with any increase in the length of the service station, a factor that directly contributes to the size of the printer.